IF THERE is one thing in the world that is absolutely guaranteed to make the hackles hit the ceiling it is beautiful women going on about how ordinary they are.

Nicole Kidman has decided to ditch the straighteners and embrace her natural curls [WENN]

This week two offenders have been on the loose: Felicity Kendal has just announced how much she’s enjoying getting older. It’s “liberating,” she says, adding that she’s given up on the Botox. Bully for her. What Felicity actually means is that she’s too gorgeous to need it – who cares about the odd wrinkle when you’re a past winner of Rear Of The Year?

The other one is Nicole Kidman, who has finally, after a lifetime of battling it, accepted that she has curly hair. “I almost never straighten it any more – I let it go curly and wild,” she has said. “It’s taken me 40- something years but I embrace the curl.” Well, I’m glad Nicole has finally found inner peace but it’s hardly on a par with Stephen Hawking coping with motor neurone disease. Do these people have any idea what their suffering is compared to someone who is actually disabled, or maybe just plain and broke?

Spare the rest of us this soul destroying guff.

The fact of the matter is that Felicity, Nicole and a whole host of other beautiful women who seek to downplay their own appearance (Michelle Pfeiffer once compared herself to a duck) have been extraordinarily blessed in the genetic stakes.

They have the most important beauty aid of the lot a bone structure that will keep them gorgeous for decades. And all this, “Oh flawed me” shtick does is to impress it on the rest of us that they are, ahem, perfect. Glad that Felicity is happy in her own skin and that Nicole is no longer a slave to the straighteners but please.

The Monstering of Monica

Monica Lewinsky has broken her silence to comment on her relationship with Mr President. While expressing utter regret, she also described how she felt suicidal and went into virtual hiding during Hillary’s presidential campaign.

What happened to Monica Lewinsky is a scandal. Bill Clinton is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself, as indeed is his wife Hillary, but when the story broke Monica was a gauche young woman barely out of her teens. She was forced to recount in graphic detail in front of an audience of salivating middle-aged men exactly what she and Bill got up to behind closed doors. This would be an ordeal for any woman, let alone one so young.

She was used as a pawn by just about everyone and it is she, not the Clintons, lawyer Kenneth Starr, nor anyone else, who has paid the price. We’re constantly told we’ve come a long way, baby, but Monica might as well have been forced to wear the “A” for adulterer label that was used to shame scarlet women. Would this have happened to a man? Don’t make me laugh.

Freddie Starr has my sympathy

I AM not now and never have been a fan of Freddie Starr yet the man’s life has clearly been ruined on the back of charges of which he is totally innocent and which have dragged on for a year-and-a-half. How has his case in any way served justice anywhere? The whole thing has been a trumped-up disgrace.

Lily Allen has publicly stated that pop stars are not being paid enough [WENN]

LILY ALLEN has complained that pop stars aren’t paid enough. That will go down well with the millions struggling to survive in these austerity driven times.

When social media is a force for good

There is an awful lot of hand wringing about social media but it does have its good side. Nearly three weeks after the kidnapping of 250 schoolgirls the Nigerian authorities are being forced to act and that is in no small part because a campaign has been waged on Twitter and Facebook to bring the tragedy to world attention. Social media as social conscience? There’s hope for us all yet.